Charlie Lakin

[Bessie Red]

In league 2 if you get a good solid, well drilled, no nonsense defence you have a great chance of promotion. Defence is crucial at this level. If the defence is right the positive results should take care of themselves. DS & JC need to identify good solid defenders who know what they are doing and have experience at this level to recruit in the summer and a good CDM, then attacking wise we shouldn't need to many additions to what we already have.

[pib]

Frankly it seems like this season is being written off, which is probably the right decision in the long term. No point lumbering us with overpriced mediocre players for 18 months to achieve possibly slightly better results, but still end the season in failure. There is no way we spent the extra funds promised, in fact I imagine the wage bill is a bit lower than it was when the window opened, so hopefully they're rolled over to the summer.

We'll just have to get used to mediocrity for a bit longer, the occasional hiding mixed in with the occasional good performance and win, and hope that next season they finally get it right.

I make that 3 seasons in a row "written off" now. Fantastic planning.

[Bessie Red]

Start of this season Bounce Back Decisively now the season is being written off. That can’t be the case GMC said top 3 were in 15th.
Either the Chairman and manager must have had expectations above the reality. We can only hope that the players we’ve brought in are better than perceived. We’ve heard nothing from Copps is he still at the club.

Win our 2 games in hand we have over some above us and we are back in the play off positions. This season has alot of twists & turns left. Most teams in this league are really inconsistent so it will be April until you can accurately predict the final position of teams. If we or any other teams around us can get consistently good results from now on then they will have a great chance of playoffs or even the third auto place.

[ncRover]

In league 2 if you get a good solid, well drilled, no nonsense defence you have a great chance of promotion. Defence is crucial at this level. If the defence is right the positive results should take care of themselves. DS & JC need to identify good solid defenders who know what they are doing and have experience at this level to recruit in the summer and a good CDM, then attacking wise we shouldn't need to many additions to what we already have.

This sounds good to me. Add in a striker to hold it up or even raw pace to compliment the others as I can see us having 2 up top going forwards. That’s the basics covered.

[sedwardsdrfc]

The bounce back decisively comment was nonsense the moment we kept the manager who took us down. One thing to do it with Fergie completely different to do it with the manager we had.

[dickos1]

Start of this season Bounce Back Decisively now the season is being written off. That can’t be the case GMC said top 3 were in 15th.
Either the Chairman and manager must have had expectations above the reality. We can only hope that the players we’ve brought in are better than perceived. We’ve heard nothing from Copps is he still at the club.

We were 8th no more than a few weeks ago, and have fallen due to not playing games.
We need to go on a little bit of a run, but we were next to Carlisle on New Year’s Day and now look at them.

[steve@dcfd]

Dickos we were 8th but two teams had games in hand and went passed us yes we’ve now got 1 game in hand and couple two games but we have to win those. But even if we win both we still won’t get back in the playoffs as other teams have the same games as us.
We’ve got start winning consistently that will be a start.

[DonnyOsmond]

I really don’t understand who some people expected us to sign in this window.
The only players available are ones who are surplus at other clubs who are available either to sign permanently or on loan until the end of the season.
The only others are the Premier league U21 players on loan.

I seriously don’t know how many times I have said this.  It is the same every January.
Why is that so difficult for some to understand.

The summer is the time to do most of the long term recruitment when players are out of contract.

Why though? Kyle Knoyle was hardly surplus to requirements here and another club at our level signed him.

[DearneValleyRover]

Knoyle made it clear that he wouldn’t sign another contract so we got money for him and then signed Brown (although on loan) who’s stats compared to Knoyle’s are better in every department (which showed on Saturday) I know the clubs got a lot wrong including this window in my opinion but I believe they got this right, money for someone who would have left for free.

[pib]

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say Brown proved he's better in every department than Knoyle on the basis of a 45 minute performance. Don't get me wrong he looked tidy on the ball and put in one or two good crosses, but we'd need to see more of him to say with confidence that it's an upgrade.

[Drover]

In league 2 if you get a good solid, well drilled, no nonsense defence you have a great chance of promotion. Defence is crucial at this level. If the defence is right the positive results should take care of themselves. DS & JC need to identify good solid defenders who know what they are doing and have experience at this level to recruit in the summer and a good CDM, then attacking wise we shouldn't need to many additions to what we already have.

Being saying this all season to my son,everyone keeps bemoaning lack of threat upfront,more recently lack of goals,But it is better to get the defence sorted first,and it should'nt be too hard too sort in league two,we've only had 3 clean sheets this season so far,Cut down the goals conceded and we would have a few more points on the board.If you get a clean sheet and you don't score,you get a point,if you get a clean sheet and you score you get 3pts.

[Chris Black come back]

It's obviously a poor defence but not quite that poor. We have (somehow) managed four clean sheets in the league this season - Bradford City away (30 July), Northampton Town away (27 August), Gillingham home (29 October) and Newport County away (10 December). Two of those clean sheets were against very poor sides in Gillingham (second bottom) and Newport County (19th).

[elmsallrover]

Dickos we were 8th but two teams had games in hand and went passed us yes we’ve now got 1 game in hand and couple two games but we have to win those. But even if we win both we still won’t get back in the playoffs as other teams have the same games as us.
We’ve got start winning consistently that will be a start.

haven't had a good tun for over two years what makes you think we will have one between now a d the end of the season

[Metalmicky]

Back to OP.... Lakin scored twice in a friendly yesterday....

https://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/sport/football/new-doncaster-rovers-signing-scores-twice-in-friendly-win-over-bolton-wanderers-4010455

[steve@dcfd]

The good thing in the article is that we are trying to establish more friendlies to give fringe and U18 players game time which is a good thing hope they can do it.
Lakin  scoring two is a good thing now DS play 352 and have three in midfield two up front.

[sedwardsdrfc]

The good thing in the article is that we are trying to establish more friendlies to give fringe and U18 players game time which is a good thing hope they can do it.
Lakin  scoring two is a good thing now DS play 352 and have three in midfield two up front.

Problem with a 352 is we’d struggle to fit Hurst into it who is probably our best attacking player. Time to drop 3/5 at the back imo to get the best chance of winning games.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

Back to OP.... Lakin scored twice in a friendly yesterday....

https://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/sport/football/new-doncaster-rovers-signing-scores-twice-in-friendly-win-over-bolton-wanderers-4010455

Also good they were playing on the Eco pitch rather than at Cantley. Hopefully Lakin has now got his range and he and others are refamiliarised with the pitch and surroundings.

[steve@dcfd]

The good thing in the article is that we are trying to establish more friendlies to give fringe and U18 players game time which is a good thing hope they can do it.
Lakin  scoring two is a good thing now DS play 352 and have three in midfield two up front.

Problem with a 352 is we’d struggle to fit Hurst into it who is probably our best attacking player. Time to drop 3/5 at the back imo to get the best chance of winning games.

I’m not the manager but he could fit in the middle three but with more scope to attack. Or be one of the front two playing behind and with the main striker. Or at home he could play left wing back there are different options.
But DS won’t change from his 343 anyway unless he has to like second half last week.

[ncRover]

The good thing in the article is that we are trying to establish more friendlies to give fringe and U18 players game time which is a good thing hope they can do it.
Lakin  scoring two is a good thing now DS play 352 and have three in midfield two up front.

Problem with a 352 is we’d struggle to fit Hurst into it who is probably our best attacking player. Time to drop 3/5 at the back imo to get the best chance of winning games.

I think Hurst has the attributes to play central attacking. Was very composed for his goal at the weekend.

[steve@dcfd]

From the latest DFP Schofield is looking to play two up front
So he could be changing